Corona del Mar’s Victory Has Program Thinking Big

The Corona del Mar girls’ cross-country team was happy to shed its small-school image at the Orange County Championships Saturday. The Sea Kings, ranked No. 1 in the state in Division IV, won the sweepstakes team title by six points over Woodbridge at Irvine Park.

“We feel like we’re starting to build a really strong team,” Corona del Mar Coach Bill Sumner said. “We’ve always had a strong program, but being a little school made it tough to compete with Division I. Now we can compete with Division I all the time.”

Corona del Mar, which last won a county title in 1993, had four runners place among the top 23, and its other three finished the 3.05-mile course in 27th, 28th and 29th. The Sea Kings were pressed hard by Woodbridge, the state’s eighth-ranked Division I team, which had its top five finish 11th, 13th, 14th, 21st and 39th.

“We had to go after Woodbridge, we had to run them down,” Sumner said. “When they came around that first turn, a half mile into the race, my girls were back a little ways and I thought, ‘Oh my God, don’t panic, everybody just kind of move forward.’ ”

Corona del Mar senior Liz Morse made a late push and finished fourth. Morse, who finished third in the state in the 800 meters last spring, was eighth with about 200 meters to go, but shifted gears and sped by three runners.

“She took a little break, which kind of surprised me a little bit,” Sumner said. “At the end there, I told her, ‘Liz, you have to catch all three of those girls because it’s about even with Woodbridge right now,’ and bam, she pops up there.”

Newport Harbor junior Amber Steen won the race in 17 minutes 44 seconds. Steen, a Masters champion in the 1,600 meters last spring, separated herself from second-place finisher Lori Mann of Santa Margarita (17:50) and third-place finisher Jenny Sears of Mater Dei (17:59) with about a half mile to go.

Steen had made a similar move on the same downhill portion of the course during a Sea View League five-way meet last week.

“Right there I said, ‘I need to go now,’ and everyone was telling me I’ve got to go now or never,” Steen said. “So I went down the hill trying to win it and it was a great outcome.”

Steen’s winning time proved to be the second-best of the meet after Fountain Valley sophomore Julie Allen won the Division II varsity race in 17:35. Because the sweepstakes race was limited to the top 15 teams, which didn’t include Fountain Valley, Allen had to race in Division II.

“I was actually pretty excited because I got the extra time to sleep in,” Allen said. “All I knew is that I had to go out and run my race, not anyone else’s race.”